Help Me
by Explosmlolguy
Summary: Leon wakes up to a repeat of history. Only this time, he's unprepared for the events that unfold.
1. Help Me

Alright, so I decided to make another Resident Evil story. I like Resident evil *stares off into the distance*  
Where was I? Oh right, this. Yeah, so this is my next fic, hope you like it. This isn't tied to my last fic at all, I just like using Leon as a character. He's probably one of my favorites in the series. I've been having sort of a tough time with everything lately, so this is stress relief. And just so everybody knows, this starting chapter is going to be a bit short. I've had one hell of a writer's block lately, and this chapter is me forcing myself to get out of it. So I promise that I'll have longer chapters after this one. This is just to help me get back on track.

Enjoy!

Help Me

Again. Here they are again. Another virus, a plague, a takeover. It was just like Raccoon city. Only now it was San Diego. Out of all of the places he could have lived in, it just had to be San Diego. Of course it would, fate just liked torturing Leon.

In less than 24 hours the entire city had been thrown in to complete chaos. People being infected, dying by the thousands. Leon didn't even know if it was Umbrella this time. He had just woken up to this. This horrible apocalypse being rained down upon the denizens of the city.

It started off just like any other day. He woke up at 5 a.m. like he always did. He showered like he always did. He skipped breakfast and told himself he'd eat tomorrow like he always did. The mundane schedule of the man who had just recently joined the San Diego Police Department. It seemed as if there was a pattern here.

He strapped on his belt and walked outside to one of the most horrible things he had ever seen. He hadn't once heard anybody scream as they were viciously attacked. He didn't hear any cars crashing into each other on the streets below. How could he? He was in his own little world, just living day by day.

No, he hadn't realized the chaos going on around him until he stepped out of his apartment door. It was just like Raccoon city all over again, only this time he wasn't prepared for it. The bodies of the apartments' fourth floor residents littered the hallways. The floor and walls had been painted red by the blood of the victims.

Leon stood there in shock. It took him a moment to realize what was going on. And when he did, he didn't know how to react. Sure, he had been in this situation before when he had "worked" in Raccoon city for a day. This was different though. He hadn't seen this coming. He was unprepared.

Once he had finally recovered from the shock of this scene, he quickly went in to action. He knocked on peoples doors to see if anyone was still alive. He was hopeful, but in the back of his mind he knew that everyone was either dead or had left. Still, he had to make sure nobody was here.

About midway through his apartment search, something struck Leon as odd. Why had he not been attacked yet? The corpses of the dead usually reanimated after being bitten or killed by another one of the infected. Did that mean these kills were fresh? Or did these corpses not come back to life?

This was answered by a simple moaning. It was the unmistakable moan of the walking dead. Leon turned around just in time to see the once dead body of a middle aged lady lumber towards him. Its arms were outstretched, clawing in his direction. It hungered for his flesh, and all he could do was stand there staring.

Leon got a hold of himself and went in to the apartment that he had opened. Closing the door, he met some resistance from the zombie that was trying to attack him. He pushed with all of his might, fending off the zombie. The door caught the creature's arm while trying to close, and Leon gave a swift kick, severing the limb. But of course, zombies didn't feel pain, and the only discernable reaction it made was a disappointed moan towards the meal that had gotten away.

Leon leaned against the door and slumped down. He hadn't realized it at first, but his hands were shaking, and he had started crying. This was new to Leon. Was he possibly, scared? If he was, why? Maybe it was because when he was in raccoon city, he had been in control. He knew what his next move would be. But he had just stepped out in to this. This had just hit him like a brick wall. He couldn't have been prepared for this, and he didn't know what to do.

He was powerless.

He didn't know how long it had been. One, two, maybe even three hours. Leon had slipped into sleep after what had happened. His body was in shock, and this was how he was coping with it. It craved control of the situation, but that was just out of its reach.

When he awoke, he realized that it wasn't his apartment. At first he was actually confused as to where he was, but the morning's events came back to him. The blood, the corpses, the attack, even the feeling of hopelessness that he had. It all came at him at once and overwhelmed him. Keeping his spot on the floor, he took deep breaths to calm himself down.

Leon decided that he would peek out into the corridor to see if anything was still hanging about. He slowly opened the door, hoping the creaking of it wouldn't alert the zombies to his presence. When he had opened it just well enough for him to see outside, he wasn't very shocked to learn that the zombie that had attacked him was still lurking about. It acted like a guard on patrol, charged with the task to kill anyone who tried escaping.

Leon quickly shut the door and fumbled the lock shut. He had his service pistol with him, but he wasn't about to go out there shooting. The noise from the gun would attract more of them, and he didn't need that. No, he would just have to camp out here until he thought of some sort of plan.

He couldn't think though. He was a man of action, not planning. All of his plans were made up on the fly. But with powerlessness came confusion. All he could do was sit there and panic. He knew he had to think of something, but all he could do was panic.

Resting his head against the door, he tried his best to run his available options through his head. He could run out there and start shooting, but he would most likely die. He could go from apartment to apartment, working his way out, but what then? Once he hit street level, he was out of options. That left one more thing, to stay here and wait it out. But the food in the fridge would only last so long.

Leon cycled these options through his head over and over again. After what may have been minutes, or hours, Leon lost track, he finally set on an option. He would move from apartment to apartment. That would get him closer to an exit, and he wouldn't have to worry about running out of food. He knew he would be in this building for a while.

Upon coming to this decision, Leon cracked the door open again. The zombie was still there, ever blocking his escape. He maneuvered his head as much as he could to see which apartment he would go to next. There was one about 30 feet down the hall, close to the stairwell going down.

He gathered his nerves and took a deep breath. After all of the mental preparation, he opened the door and set his plan into action. As soon as he stepped out, the zombie turned and attacked him. Leon wasted no time getting rid of it. He took out his service pistol and shot the zombie once in the head, killing it instantly. He didn't want to draw too much attention, but he needed to do this quick.

He got to the apartment with no other altercations, because that would be too obvious. No, he got to the apartment and discovered it to be locked. "Shit," Leon said quietly to himself. He tried the doorknob again, but to no avail. It was locked. The family must either be out of town or dead. Either way, he had to find a new place to go, and quick.

His eyes darted around, looking for another place to go in to. He noticed that he had gotten the attention of some other zombies wandering around. These zombies hadn't been here before, but he noticed that there were less corpses on the floor this time around. This proved that the attacks had been pretty recent. Nevertheless, this was bad; he really needed to find another apartment to take shelter in, and quickly.

He ran over to another apartment, this one being closer to the stairwell. The door opened fine, and he thanked his good luck on still being alive after that close call. He locked the door behind him as he entered, and heard a small thumping noise on it afterwards. He had no doubt that it was a zombie pathetically trying to claw its way in.

Leon gave out a relieved sigh and turned around. It was a sparsely furnished apartment, meaning there was probably only one person currently residing in it. Overall, it was spacious and didn't look like it currently housed any monsters.

He suddenly realized that he was hungry, and made his way to the kitchen. Hopefully whoever lived here had food stocked in there. Lucky for him, the fridge was stocked with a few different assortments of food. He would be ok staying in this apartment for a few days.

The decisions on what he should eat were interrupted by a loud noise coming from the bedroom. He quickly spun around ready to shoot anything that moved towards him. When he saw nothing, he went to investigate, making sure to stay wary of his surroundings.

When he got to the bedroom, Leon slowly pushed open the door. The low creaking of the large object only served to add to the straining tension he was already feeling. Tiptoeing into the room, he swung his gun around; first left, then right. He didn't see anything right away, and was about to leave when he was jumped from behind by a zombie.

It didn't look as if it had been eaten before it died, so Leon assumed that it was a bite victim who had succumbed to the infection here in the apartment. Despite this, it showed signs of rapid decaying like most of the creatures did when they became infected. The flesh peeled in places on the face, and the body was giving off a rancid odor. The eye sockets had sunken in on themselves, making the eyes bulge out in an almost comedic fashion, as if it were a character in a Saturday morning cartoon. There were only small chunks of hair left on its scalp, and that was peeling off too. Revealed underneath was the porcelain white skull.

Leon struggled desperately to regain his composure while fighting the thing off. He was a highly skilled officer, but wasn't prepared for a sneak attack like this. He gave a halfhearted shove and succeeded in pushing the zombie halfway across the room. This gave Leon time to bolt out of the bedroom and into the living room.

The zombie followed closely behind, literally centimeters away from grabbing him every single step. Being in an apartment, he could not easily outmaneuver the zombie, and was quickly cornered. Leon went to draw his weapon, but was horrified when he remembered that he had set it on the kitchen counter before going to prepare his "meal."

Leon looked desperately for anything that could be used as a weapon. The zombie lunged at him, and he was forced to use the telephone to defend himself. When the creature was close enough, Leon gave a hard swing, connecting squarely in the side of its head and sending it reeling. Leon took the opportunity to go on the offensive. He used the phone on the zombie again, and went to snap its neck. This move failed though, and before he knew it, Leon was down on the ground trying to fight the zombie off of his neck. It was so close though; close enough to where he could smell its rancid breath. Close enough to where he could hear the desperate moaning, the moaning of hunger. The meal was so close, but the zombie couldn't quite get to it.

Leon found one last ounce of strength in him and threw the zombie off. It fell and hit the wall, giving him enough time to get back on his feet. He ran at the zombie, and stomped on its head as hard as he could. The things head caved in, sending blood, skull and brain matter splashing on to the wall, floor, and Leon's pants. It made a horrible squelching noise as his foot moved around inside the skull as he tried to remove it.

He had finally succeeded in getting rid of this enemy. Shaken up from the incident, he sat down on a nearby chair to relax. He certainly wasn't hungry anymore, nor was he ready to try advancing to another apartment. No, he just needed time to collect and compose himself. And with that, for the second time that day, he cried.


	2. Wake Up

*Insert clever and witty comment here* Except that I have nothing clever or witty to say. Oh well, sucks for me. Well, except that nothing I use as a line break is working right now, and I don't know why. So bear with me. I'm a little mad, because that means that transitions to different times in the story are going to look weird as hell.

Anyways, enjoy.  
-

Wake Up

How long had it been: Two, three hours? Leon didn't know. All he was aware of right now was a horrible pain in his neck. He should have at least used the bed in the apartment before he went to sleep. That way he could have woken up without an annoying ache.

Leon slowly got to his feet, listening to his joints pop and wiping the sleep out of his eyes. He knew he was still in this apartment, and that he had killed a zombie not too long ago. He also knew that he would have to move soon if he wanted to get out. There was no use in staying in the building for too much longer.

The last thing he remembered was crying, which was odd. He had never actually cried over grief or fear before. And maybe it was because he was still trying to wake up, but he didn't really feel anything anymore. It was like everything had been repressed after he had fallen asleep. Was this his way of getting back in control of the situation? He didn't know, but he decided not to question it.

Leon checked to make sure he still had his service pistol on him, which he did. Now all he had to do was get the hell out of here. That was a lot easier said than done though, because he didn't know what awaited him out there. Especially now that several hours had passed since he had actually taken the time to look out there.

That made him think for a minute. What time was it right now? From what Leon could see there wasn't a clock visible from where he was sitting, so he decided to go look in the bedroom. Walking to the bedroom, he was reminded of his recent kill; the zombie that had almost made him lunch. He quickly looked away to avoid vomiting from the mess he had created.

Leon got to the bedroom and saw that it was currently 6:00 pm. Wow, time really flies, he thought. It hadn't even been noon when he had fallen asleep…had it? He was pretty sure that it was early when he went to sleep, meaning he had been asleep for quite some time.

Leon walked out of the bedroom and to the front door. If he were going to escape to another apartment, he would have to check the surroundings before going out. He opened the door just a crack, to see what awaited him. He was surprised to see nothing. No corpses littered the hallway, which meant that they had all gotten up and walked away, but they weren't walking around the hallway either. This meant that they had all gone somewhere else, presumably downstairs.

Leon took out his pistol and slowly opened the door. There could still be a couple of them outside his range of vision, so he wanted to be prepared for a surprise attack. But there wasn't a sneak attack, because like he had seen, there was nothing on this floor. This both surprised and relieved Leon. At least now he could make a bit more progress without having to fight for his life.

Leon went to the stairwell at the end of the hallway and walked down, holding his pistol out in front of him just in case he did run into something. But there was no trouble going down to the next floor. There was also nothing on the third floor either. Leon was starting to think his luck had finally turned around.

Strolling down to the second floor, he saw a zombie lingering at the other end of the hallway. Leon stopped dead in his tracks. He didn't need the thing hearing him, so he carefully made his way down the corridor, trying the locks on the apartments as he went by. All of the ones he went by were locked, and Leon soon found himself in a predicament. Halfway down, Leon stumbled over his feet and fell. Hitting the ground, he cursed under his breath. He knew that the zombie would hear him, and it was only a matter of time before it would come running.

He got up and saw the thing lumbering towards him. This one was missing a large chunk of its arm, probably a bite victim. Leon almost felt sympathetic towards it, but he knew what he had to do. He started to look around for a door that was maybe left open, and saw exactly that. Someone had their door open just a little, and was peeking out at him. When Leon noticed the person, they quickly shut and locked their door.

Leon ran over to the door and started knocking on it. He looked down the hall and saw that the zombie was getting closer with its slow, lumbering walk. He turned back to the door and started knocking harder. "Whoever's in there please let me in! I'm not infected, I swear!" Leon thought about begging, but decided that it might not work.

"Can't do that son, sorry." It sounded like an older man, and he obviously wasn't going to let Leon in.

"Sir, please, let me in, one of them is coming down the hall," Leon was begging now.

"I said no, sorry," said the man.

"DAMMIT OPEN UP!" Leon screamed at the unseen man. The zombie was within punching distance now, so Leon grabbed his gun and prepared to shoot it.

"Fine then, I'll let you in," said the man. The door opened and Leon quickly entered and closed the door. He took a few breaths to gather his nerves. "I'm sorry I yelled, but you have to understand one of them was about to get me," Leon said noticeably shaken by the experience. He turned around to see who had saved him, and was greeted with a pistol to the face.

"You have ten seconds to prove that you aren't infected, or I'm gonna splatter your brains all over my wall," said the unknown man, never taking his eye off of Leon.

Leon almost pissed himself at this. "A-Alright, just hold on," he stuttered out. Leon pulled up his sleeves and showed the man. "See? No bites."

"Take your shirt off," the man was obviously not pleased with just those results.

Leon took off his shirt and slowly spun around in a circle. "Are you happy now?"

The man carefully looked Leon over, making sure he was free of bites. After the inspection, he said, "now your pants."

Leon was dumbfounded by this statement. The man saw the look Leon had on his face, and replied to it with, "Unless you want to be out there with that thing, then be my guest. But if you want to stay here, take off the pants."

Leon reluctantly did as he was told. He certainly didn't like undressing in front of other men, but he didn't like being with zombies even more. He was in his boxers now, slowly spinning around to prove he wasn't bitten. After another inspection, the man said, "Alright, you're fine. You can put your damn clothes back on."

Leon let out a sigh of relief. After he had put his clothes back on, he walked over to where the man was now sitting. The living room, with enough furnishings to fill a full sized living room in an actual house. It was all bland furniture, but it still looked good considering it was just a drab apartment.

The man looked at Leon. "Hey sorry about all of that. It's just that since all of this shit started, you can't trust anyone. I just had to be sure, you know? Anyways, the name's Mark."

Leon stared back. "Leon. And yeah, I know what you mean."

Mark seemed to be in his mid-fifty's. He had gray-black hair, blue eyes, and a slightly stocky build. Leon could tell that he was pretty new in the city, because he had somewhat of a southern accent when he spoke.

There was silence for a while, and then Leon decided to speak up: "So, why didn't you leave with the rest of the people that got out?" he asked.

Mark looked at Leon with what almost looked like a saddened expression on his face. He sighed, "Well, when I saw all of those people getting killed, I figured it would be a good idea to stay inside my apartment. You know, make myself unseen. If they don't know you exist, they aren't going to go after you. I keep my kitchen pretty well stocked, so I can live here for a little while before I have to actually move. And when I do, I'll just climb right out on to the fire escape. Surprisingly, none of the creatures are on it. But if one just so happens to make its way out there, it won't be coming in here, I put a bunch of shit in front of the window to make sure it wouldn't get in."

Climbing out of the fire escape, now why hadn't he thought of that? It must have been because he was too busy panicking to actually realize it was an available escape route. He looked over to Mark's fortifications and saw that he had actually done a good job. There were plenty of heavy objects in front of that window. It would probably take more than a few zombies to knock them over.

"Hey buddy, you awake?" Mark was up in Leon's face now.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm here." Leon's mind must have been miles away.

"Heh, you didn't hear my question did you? I asked why you were still around."

Leon sighed. "I just woke up to it," he replied, "nothing special. The night before, everything is ok. I wake up this morning, and there're dead bodies in the hallway. I was too freaked out to even remember that there was a fire escape." He chuckled at this. "But I guess that's a good thing now, since I've found another survivor. You know, strength in numbers and all."

Mark nodded. "True. Very true indeed. Say, this may come off as a bit weird, but do you have a weapon on you by chance?"

Leon pulled out his pistol and showed it to Mark. He took the gun from Leon and examined it before giving back. "Alright," he said, "I just wanted to make sure. No use in working together if nobody can defend themselves."

Leon holstered his weapon. "Yeah, I guess."

Mark studied Leon carefully. "You don't seem all that nervous before. Tell me Leon, have you gone through something like this before?"

Leon snapped right to attention. "Yeah," he said, "I have."

"Well then, tell me all about it," Mark said, leaning back on his sofa.

So that's what Leon did. He told Mark all about what happened at Raccoon city. He told him how it had been his first day on the job. He told him all about what Umbrella had done to the citizens of the city. He told him how he had barely escaped the forsaken city before it had gotten nuked. Leon didn't really like telling this story, but it didn't look like they were going anywhere any time soon. And besides, Mark listened well. The man was leaned forward in his seat, absorbing Leon's story.

When Leon finished, Mark stood up and went over to the window. Looking out to the street below, he said, "Well Leon, you seem to have some experience with shit like this. So what do you think we should do?"

Somehow, Leon knew that question was coming. Though, he had already thought of something as he was telling his story. "Simple, we get out of this building. We're gonna need a car though. Travelling these streets on foot will pretty much be suicide unless we're in a car. The thing is, I walk to work every day, so I don't have one."

Mark turned around, grinning. "Well, I guess it's a good thing I have one then."

A few hours later, they were prepared. They had laid out a plan that, while not perfect, would serve well for the situation at hand. The two survivors were currently carrying any provisions they could hold while still maneuvering well enough to fight off zombies. Stocked up and ready to go, their plan was simple: Get the hell out of here and to Mark's car.

Luckily, they wouldn't have to go down to the street in order to get in his car. There was a parking garage connected to the apartment building. A hallway connected the two buildings together, and the door going to the garage was in the lobby. Leon still didn't know what was all down there, but at least he didn't have to walk around the street where he would be an easy target for these things.

Mark opened the door, and Leon stepped out. Gun raised, he quickly turned from left to right to make sure nothing would pounce on them as soon as they started walking. The zombie that had attacked him earlier was now all the way on the other side of the corridor; away from the stairwell, and their ultimate exit.

Leon motioned for Mark to follow, and he did so. Quietly shutting the door as to not alarm the zombie, Mark kept an eye on it just to make sure it didn't notice. With the door shut, they now made their way to the stairwell. They took light steps, and made sure they didn't shake the food they had with them too much. Before they had left, Leon had suggested using the bed sheets as carrying cases. Paper and plastic bags would make too much noise. Nevertheless, they didn't need things dropping out and causing noise.

They got to the stairs without any issues. The zombie down at the other end was still turned away from them, oblivious to what was happening behind it. The two survivors proceeded down the stairs, ever cautious of noise. When they had decided that they were a good distance away from the zombie, they relaxed a little. Leon let out a sigh of relief. It was as if he had been holding that one breath in the entire time.

They were at the first floor landing now. Here, there was a series of hallways that ultimately lead to the Lobby. Leon couldn't hear any of the moans that the zombies generally made, so he took this as a good sign. He was still cautious though. If one got cocky, they usually ended up dead. That's just how it seemed to work.

The survivors slowly made their way to the lobby, ever so slowly. Leon was trying to pay attention, but all he could hear was the audible thudding in his ears. It was as if his heart was trying to jump out of his chest. He didn't know the last time he had been so scared of something. He hadn't even been this scared in raccoon city.

But he trudged on with Mark close behind. They would be coming upon the lobby soon, so Mark drew his gun and held it out in front of him, waiting for a zombie to cross his path. Leon did the same thing while repositioning the sacks of food on his arms. There was some audible moaning now, but nothing too severe. It didn't seem like there was a lot of them.

Well, that was wrong.

As they entered the lobby, they discovered where all of the apartment's residents had gone. Here they were, aimlessly wandering around the lobby of the building. Not all of them were currently here, but a good number of them were. Leon estimated that there were about 40 in all. 40 of them just standing here, motionless, waiting for a hapless meal to walk by.

Mark gave out a startled, "OH FUCK!" as he rounded the corner. Leon slapped his hand over the man's mouth, but it was already too late. The zombies had heard him, and were now shambling towards them. Both of them were completely frozen in place. Leon darted his eyes around for a path to the garage, and Mark stood there and whimpered.

Leon saw that the receptionist's desk was clear in the space behind it, so he grabbed Mark's arm and started running over that way. Leon pushed the stunned man behind there before running behind the desk himself. Hopefully, Leon thought, they'll come behind here. The zombies did start funneling to the area they were in, but a few remained on the other side. They were waiting for the survivors to come out from behind the desk.

Once the zombies had made considerable progress towards them, Leon vaulted himself over the desk. He was about to run off towards the garage, but realized that he had dropped the food he was holding, and that Mark was still standing behind the desk. "Shit," Leon muttered under his breath. He turned around and grabbed the food first; he knew how to hotwire a car if he needed to, his first instinct was self-preservation. After he had saved the food, he decided to save Mark. "Goddammit Mark, snap out of it!" Leon screamed this to Mark as he dragged the stunned man over the desk. When he was back on the ground, he finally came back to his senses.

They sprinted over to the door leading to the parking garage. There were a few zombies in the way, but they were easily taken care of with a bullet to the skull. Mark threw the door open and they ran down the hall. The zombies were ambitious though, and followed behind. The survivors made good distance between them, but there were more zombies when they got to the garage. Coming out of the corridor, Leon was attacked by a zombie. It pulled him to the ground and attempted a bite.

But the zombie's maw only caught his shirt's sleeve. Ripping it away, Leon realized how close he just came to becoming one of them. Leon kicked the thing off of him and sprayed its brains all over the concrete. He stood back up and resumed following Mark to his car. "Are you okay?" Mark asked, worried.

"Yeah, it didn't bite me," replied Leon, visibly shaken by the experience. He was rubbing his arm where the zombie had taken a bite of the shirt. He was still pretty shaken; this was just to make himself calm down. People didn't realize how nerve racking an encounter like that really was to a person.

They maneuvered their way through the garage, dodging zombies and trying not to get cornered. It was hard, because it seemed like all of the residents that weren't in the lobby were in here. But at least it was a larger area to move around with. Trying to do this with the same number of zombies back in the lobby would have been suicide. They eventually got to Mark's car, a 2008 Ford Fusion. Leon smiled. He knew a car like this was reliable. Well, as long as it had gas in it at least.

Mark pulled out his keys and started to fumble with the lock. Leon kept an eye on the space behind him, making sure nothing would attack him. Unfortunately, something did decide to attack him. A zombie lumbered out from behind a car and started to make its way towards them.

"Mark, you can hurry up with that lock any day now!" Leon yelled, panicking.

"Yeah yeah, I got it!" replied Mark.

Since Mark didn't have the remote unlocking unit with him, he had to fumble with an actual key. He finally got it opened, and unlocked the door for Leon to get in. Leon quickly opened the door and got inside, slamming the door behind him. The zombie was a second too slow. It flopped itself against the window and clawed, trying to get inside.

Leon let out a sigh of relief. "Alright, now step on it," he told Mark.

Mark nodded and started the ignition. The car sprang to life, and Mark drove out of the garage. When they were on the street, he asked Leon, "What do we do now?"

"Simple," replied Leon, "we look for other survivors."


	3. Safety

Sorry for the wait. There was a bunch of crap that needed my attention, so I had to do all of that before I could actually get started on this. But I'm here now, so that's what counts…right?

I'm introducing some more OC's in this chapter, just for the sake of making it look better. So please don't rip my head off with the abundance of them. I don't plan on introducing any more characters after this, mainly because I don't want to get too crazy with this. I'm pretty much pushing it as it is right now. But don't worry, this will all tie in with Resident evil. You've just got to wait and read.

Also, I'll be giving names to places. I'm just coming up with these names off of the top of my head, so any similarities to actual places is purely coincidental.

* * *

Safety

Both of the survivors could breathe easily now that they had started moving. The ride was going well so far, and they hadn't spotted many zombies wandering the streets. Those they did spot were easily dodged caused no problems for them.

"Don't actually hit them with your car. Sure, it's funny to watch them pop against the hood of your car, but you risk damaging your only means of transportation." Leon had explained this to Mark as they after they had exited the garage. Too many times had Leon seen someone hit a zombie, only to have their car stop working afterwards. Those survivors usually ended up having their entrails used as a zombie's snack. You had to watch out for these careless little things when all hell broke loose.

It had been about five minutes since they had exited the garage. Mark was driving around with no clear destination in mind. They were supposed to be looking for other survivors, but he was just glad to be away from those things. He would just wait until Leon came up with another plan. His quick, crude plans had a way of somehow working out in the end.

Leon stared ahead for a long time doing nothing. He didn't even so much as make eye contact with Mark. He was deep in thought, trying to figure out what to do next. There were a million places they could go, but which would be the safest. Sure, they wanted to look for other survivors, but they didn't want to deal with too many people. That always ended the same way; with the group getting killed or killing each other.

After a few minutes, Leon finally spoke up. "Where's the closest grocery store?" he asked.

Mark thought for a few seconds. "There's one not too far from here. About five minutes actually," he replied.

"Is it big?" Leon asked, his stoic face never changing.

"Nah," replied Mark. "All's it is is a small building, couldn't hold too many people."

Leon smiled. "Perfect, that's just what we need."

Mark raised his eyebrows, confused. "It is?" he asked.

Leon turned towards him. "Of course, we don't want to deal with too many survivors, so we want to avoid large stores. But with a smaller store like that, there are bound to be a few survivors without there being too many."

Mark nodded. He understood now. Of course, he should have never doubted this man in the first place. He had experience with these kinds of things; he knew what he was doing.

Mark drove to the place he had mentioned. It was an uneventful ride ruled by silence and the maneuvering around obstacles. Leon had adopted the stoic expression on his face once again, never once letting it waver. Mark glanced over every now and again, trying to read his face, seeing if he could pick up on what he was thinking. He gave up on doing this though. It was like trying to read the thoughts of a brick wall.

"Park here," said Leon when Mark started slowing down. He did as he was told. He turned the car off and engaged the parking brake. Leon instantly disengaged it. Mark saw this and stared at Leon, demanding an explanation. Leon smiled and said, "If we need to get away in a hurry, this will just cost us more time." With that he exited the car. Mark remained behind though, running what Leon said through his head. Leon saw this and knocked on the car window, getting Mark's attention. "You coming?" he asked.

Mark nodded and got out of the car. He went to lock it, but remembered what Leon had just told him and left it unlocked. Now that he thought about it, it seemed like a pretty smart idea. He pointed down the street. "It's not too far from here," he said. "Just up the street, a place called 'Dell grocery."

Dell grocery, Leon had been there before. It was a pretty small building. Leon had always wondered how it had qualified to be a grocery store. Nevertheless, he knew there wouldn't be a lot of people there just because it was small. Most people preferred big stores because it had supplies that lasted longer. Or so they thought, at least. When everything went to hell, you usually didn't have electricity. Without electricity, most the freezer units don't run, and all of the meat spoils. Then you end up with less than you though having to be distributed between more people than it can feed.

"Let's get going before we get attacked," Leon said to Mark. They started walking down the street, passing by a zombie every now and again that would be oblivious to them. The walk was going pretty nicely without the zombies noticing them until they actually got to the store. Outside the entrance was a large group of zombies, 30 from what Leon could count. They were all clawing at the front of the store. The only reason they weren't getting in was because of the metal covers over the store windows.

Leon walked forward and started shooting. All of his bullets found their marks, whether it be in the heads or bodies of the zombies. They started to turn their attention towards the two survivors that weren't in the store as they were being killed off.

"What the fuck are you doing!" screamed Mark.

"I'm not going to rush in there and start begging to be let in like I did with you. We have to show that we're friendly if we're gonna get in there. The only way to do that is to start shooting."

That sounded way too dangerous for Mark, but he followed suit. Raising his pistol, he took careful aim at the zombie leading the pack. He had a lot of practice with a gun, so he didn't worry about missing. Finding his mark, he shot. The bullet struck the zombie right in the center of its forehead, killing it instantly. He stood his ground, dropping zombies as he saw them. He was thankful that he had someone with him who was equally as good with a gun. Leon was duplicating Mark: Dropping zombies as he saw them; one bullet for each one.

"We have to move forward and get closer to the door!" Leon shouted over the moans of the zombies. There were more coming now, attracted by the sounds of the gunshots. Leon reloaded his weapon before advancing closer to the group of undead. Mark kept telling himself how insanely crazy this was, but he followed Leon nonetheless.

Leon was clearing a path through the zombies. Running low and hitting them with his shoulder, they were being knocked away and to the ground. The zombies, with their less than lackluster coordination, had trouble getting up after the tackle. Mark once again wondered how Leon could be so knowledgeable and just downright ballsy when it came to these things. He himself was fine with just shooting from a distance, but that kid went right up and charged headlong into those things.

Mark traveled the path that Leon had cleared through them, clubbing them as he went through. Looking back behind him, he saw that more were closing in on them. Mark started to move a little faster, not wanting to become a main entrée. He kept pushing them out of the way as he advanced and shot those that got too close. He eventually caught up with Leon; he was just making his way out of the group of the undead and going towards the door of the store.

Leon looked behind him and saw Mark, unscathed. He nodded towards him and started knocking. "We aren't bitten!" he screamed. "Let us in!"

For a while, there was nothing, and both of them thought that they may need to figure something else out. But at the last possible second, a voice spoke up from inside. "Go around back, we'll open the door when you get there."

Leon motioned for Mark to follow him and started running. The zombies were still closing in on them, but the two survivors were resilient, killing any that got too close. Leon was resorting to knifing them, and Mark merely pushed them away, not bothering with his gun. His goal right now was to get into that building.

Entering the alleyway, Mark tipped over trashcans as they made their way to the door. He wanted to do everything in his power to make sure they had enough time to get into the building. Him and Leon were sprinting as fast as they could, almost excited at the possibility of a decent refuge. Occasionally glancing behind them, they saw that the distance between them and the zombies was increasing. Mark thanked their brief good luck.

They rounded the corner of the building at the end of the alley and saw the back door open with a man gesturing at them to go inside. They quickly complied and ran in. The man quickly closed and locked the door behind them.

"Don't relax just yet, we have a few more doors to go through before you can consider yourself home safe," said the man.

He pushed passed Leon and Mark and started walking into the store. The newcomers followed him, keeping a wary hand near their weapons, just in case this ended badly. They seemed friendly now, but people turned mean during times of terror.

After a short walk through a couple of short hallways, they went through a door that entered the main store. It was surely small, about as big as a quarter of an apartment building floor. From a first glance, it looked like there was a small motley crew of 3 other survivors. It didn't look as if they had been here very long either; the store shelves were still pretty full.

Before the man advanced any further into the store, he turned and asked, "You guys aren't bitten are you? I'm not going to check you or anything, but just know that if you are, I'll probably just kill you as soon as I find out."

"No, we aren't infected," was Leon's reply.

The man looked him over, as to see for himself the validity of that claim. After a couple of minutes, he seemed to be satisfied with that answer, and proceeded to introduce the group to the new survivors.

"The name's Jeff. I'm what you may call the 'appointed leader' of the group. It just came to be like that, and nobody said anything against it."

Pointing to a rather young and quite beautiful looking woman, Jeff said, "That's Linda, my wife. I may be the leader, but she's pretty much the asskicker of the group. Zombies don't stand much of a chance against her if you ask me." There was a hint of a smile as he said this.

Pointing to another man that looked no older than thirty, unshaven with sunken eyes that held a cold look of desperation and hate, Jeff said, "That there is Jacob. We picked him up on the way to the store. His wife was killed in the attack. Him and his son made it out ok though."

He pointed to the last person, whom Leon assumed was Jacob's son. He looked relatively young; twelve or thirteen actually. "And that's Matthew, Jacob's son, obviously. He doesn't talk much to anyone but his dad, so it's really no use trying to talk with him or anything."

Jeff swept his hand over the group. "Well, there's our group," he said with a smile. "Nothing big, but we've been managing. Fortified the store and started rationing out food. We should be fine for quite a while if we just hold out like we've been doing. And if you're worried about being a problem, don't. We'll still have plenty of supplies for the both of you. By the way, do you mind introducing yourselves to us?"

Leon introduced himself first. "I'm Leon," he said extending his arm out for a handshake. "And this is Mark. We met up back at an apartment building not too far from here. I don't know about him, but I have experience with fighting and surviving against zombies. So I can be of some help if you need it."

Jeff nodded and said, "Well, that's about it. Plumbing still works, so that's a plus. The toilets are just down the hall outside of the door we just came in through."

Good thing he told him that, because Leon had to go badly. He thanked Jeff and quickly hurried out of the room to the bathroom. He got there and quickly did his business, not wanting to be away from the group too long. Exiting the stall, he heard a noise coming from a stall a few doors down.

At first, Leon thought that someone else had come in behind him. But as he continued to listen, he realized that it sounded like something wanted to get out. Something like a zombie. Leon quickly pulled out his gone and advanced towards the stall with the gun outstretched before him. When he was a few steps away from the stall, he extended his arm and pushed the door inwards. He wasn't prepared for what he saw next.

What he saw was a zombie. He had seen plenty of those, but this one was chained to the seat of the toilet in a sitting position. Chains constricted the arms to the things sides, and bound the legs together. They ran to a pole that was in the wall, pulled tight to allow little to know room for the zombie to lunge. The scratching he had heard was coming from the zombie's fingernails being scraped against the porcelain of the toilet. Leon was taken completely by surprise at this and stumbled back, almost screaming from the scare it had given him.

Still staring at the zombie, Leon didn't hear Jeff enter the bathroom. His vision was focused solely on it when Jeff said, "I see you've met my daughter."

Leon quickly spun around, surprised, and asked, "What? Your daughter?" He was completely dumbfounded. "How…why...why is she here?"

Jeff just looked at his daughter for a moment before replying. "It's because I can't let her go Leon. She's my daughter, I'm sure you can understand that. I'm not just going to leave her out there with the rest of them."

Leon didn't know how to reply to this, so he just pulled out his gun and went to shoot the zombified girl. But as soon as he did, Jeff pulled out his sidearm and pointed it at Leon .

"You see Leon, I can't let you do that. My wife and I, we've come too far to lose her. We're not just going to let someone like you take her away from us. Now, you're going to put your gun away, and then I'm going to leave the bathroom. You're going to shut that door and wash your hands before you leave this bathroom. We don't want anyone getting suspicious. But after you go back out there, you're not going to tell anyone what you saw here. Because if you do, my wife and I are going to kill all of you, are we clear?"

Leon nodded.

"Good," Jeff said with a smile. He turned around to exit the bathroom, but stopped. He turned back to Leon and asked, "By the way, how did you know she was in there?"

Leon looked over at the girl and replied, "I heard her scratching her nails against the toilet."

Jeff frowned when he heard this. "Looks like I have to pull the chains tighter," he said to nobody in particular, and exited the bathroom.

After Jeff's exit, Leon merely stood there for a couple of minutes before finally doing what he had been told. He closed the door, but not before taking one last look at the girl, who was ceaselessly trying to break out of the chains and go after Leon. As he stared at her, he felt what could be described as pity for the girl. This almost made him sad to see this. But instead of pondering that thought, he just closed the door like he was told. After washing his hands, because everyone should follow standard bathroom protocol when the zombies took over, he went back out to rejoin the group.

"Took you long enough," Mark said when Leon came back into the room. Leon simply smiled at that remark and went to sit over with the group.

They weren't really doing anything remarkable; just sitting there, looking out at the zombie masses. Leon gave them props on the fortifications. Steel shutters nailed over the windows would keep a lot of zombies out for a long time.

Since there was nothing else to do, Leon just took a seat and stared down at his feet. He did this for a few minutes before letting out a heavy sigh and stating to the rest of the group that he was hungry and would get something to eat. He asked if anybody else wanted anything, and was met with replies of no. Shrugging, he went off to find something decent to eat and to hopefully find some form of entertainment.

As he passed the boy, Matthew, he remembered, he looked down at the kid. Someone that young didn't deserve to go through the hell he was going through right now. But as he studied the kid, he noticed something amiss. It was a blood pool forming just under the shoulder of his shirt. Leon studied this for a few seconds before walking off to avoid arousing any suspicion.

Suspicion from now knowing what the kid and his father were hiding. That blood pool was coming from a bite.


	4. Falling Apart

The reason why you haven't seen an update lately is because I've been extremely unmotivated to type up new chapters. Selfish, I know, but that's how it is. But now I have a new chapter for everyone, yay! So R&R, it'll make me a happy person. Won't you feel nice if you make a random stranger happy?

Anyways, here you go. The next chapter.

* * *

Falling Apart

Leon couldn't sit still knowing that there were two very serious problems in the building right now. With the zombie in the bathroom and the kid bitten, it was only a matter of time before something happened. Quickly darting his eyes around out of pure nervous suspicion, he realized that he had to come up with yet another plan.

He stood up. "Mark," he said, "I need to talk to you in the back for a minute." He turned and left with only a curious glance from Jeff.

Mark shrugged and followed. When he got there, Leon pulled him away from the sight of the group, and immediately said, "We need to get out of here, pronto."

Mark was taken back by this. "Why?" he asked, "We just got here. Besides, the place is fortified and stocked. And we even have people who know how to shoot a fucking gun! We're fine here Leon, just calm down."

Mark turned to walk away, but Leon held him there. "No, we're not ok," he said, looking around to make sure nobody else was near. "We are in a very bad situation right now. Jeff's zombie daughter is chained up in the fucking bathroom, that kid's been bitten, and Jeff is absolutely fucking psychotic! We need to get out of here."

Mark was absolutely stunned at this point. This couldn't be true, could it? He didn't want to believe it, but he had no reason to think Leon was lying. The man had saved him more than once today. He sighed, suddenly stressed out by the whole situation and said, "Fine, when do we leave?"

Leon smiled and patted him on the shoulder. "I knew you would stick with me. Anyways, I don't want to leave right now, because that nut might get suspicious and try to stop us. Plus, it's getting pretty close to dark, and it's a bitch trying to avoid those zombies at night. I suggest we wait until early morning. Dawn would probably be the best bet. They'll probably be sleeping then. And if they aren't, I'm sure they monitor the zombies in shifts. It'll be easier to get out when less of them are awake."

Mark just nodded. "Sure, we'll go with that. I can't think of anything better. I don't know how we'll be able to keep a low profile until then."

Leon just shrugged. "You're gonna have to try. Jeff is already pretty suspicious of me, and no doubt he'll be paying attention to you now. Hell, the entire group has probably got us labeled for suspicious seeing as we're talking to each other away from the rest of them, and we're the newcomers. Just try to keep cool for a while, ok?"

So Mark did as he was told, and went back into the room to resume the position of hapless survivor. He was nervous, but he did his best to keep his composure. He didn't want to blow this for him and Leon. They might now make it out of here alive if he did. Behind him, he could here Jeff starting up a conversation with Leon, loud enough for the whole group of survivors to hear. Mark figured that he was probably trying to get Leon to tell him what he had told Mark.

"So Leon, what were you two talking about?" Mark said in a deliberately loud voice.

Leon just stood there with a stoic expression on his face. "Nothing you need to concern yourself with Jeff."

But Jeff still pressed. "Really? Because we wouldn't want you to try and overtake us now, would we?"

When Jeff said this, Linda and Jacob started to move their hands towards their weapons, but Leon didn't crack. "No," he replied, "Just about something that happened back at the apartments that we escaped from, no biggy." Leon even gave a smile when he said that. He was putting up one hell of a front.

Jeff, stared at Leon for a while longer, snickered, and walked away. Leon let his smile drop and resumed sitting down over by the windows. Mark hung his head down out of boredom and anticipation of wanting to get the hell out of here. Leon stared straight ahead, mentally preparing himself for what was about to come.

* * *

Night came, and they were ready.

Luckily, Leon had been assigned to the first guard shift. He didn't see why Jeff would do that if he was suspicious of him, but Leon didn't complain. This would give him some time to plan an escape route out of here. It was still several hours before dawn, and he had all of this time by himself, so he might as well make use of it.

Being careful not to wake anyone, he stepped over the sleeping figures on the ground. When he went to step over Matthew, he stopped. He stared down at the child and started wondering if he had really been bitten. He showed no signs of turning into a zombie; he hadn't even started showing signs of turning. It had easily been twelve hours since the kid had been bitten.

Leon didn't ponder it too much. Better not to think about it. He stepped over Matthew and went to plan a route outside. He didn't want to head straight for the door, because they would probably shoot him and Mark before they even got there. There were a few aisles that they could weave their ways through to slow down their pursuers when the time came, so Leon kept that in the back of his mind as a possible escape route. With his plan set, he went over to wake Mark up from his slumber. Carefully stepping over the other people and taking light steps as not to wake anyone, he made his way over to where Mark was sleeping. Taking one last look around to make sure nobody had awakened, he nudged the sleeping figure with his foot and said, "Get up, it's time to go."

Mark groaned for a second and then slowly rose to his feet, wiping his eyes. He grabbed his weapon off of the floor next to him and whispered, "So, what are we doing?" Leon looked at the rest of the group sleeping on the floor and said, "We're just going to go straight for the door if they stay asleep. If not we separate and run through the aisles to keep them off of us." Leon started to step over the rest of them and stopped suddenly. "Before we go," he said, "I need to do something."

Mark only shrugged and replied, "Make it quick, I don't want to be here much longer."

Leon stepped over the survivors and made his way to the bathroom. If Jeff's daughter was still alive, he planned on killing it. He may not like it here with them, but he didn't want them to die either. And besides, nobody deserved what was happening to her right now, zombie or not.

Leon opened the bathroom and was greeted with a low growl and scratching noises. He quickly walked over to the stall that the girl was in, opened the door, and bashed her head in before she could make any noise. He had to look away as the blood and brains splattered along the insides of the stall and his body, and tried to drown out the sickening "thwack" the butt of the gun made as it connected with her skull. After he had reassured himself that she was not getting up, he stopped and walked out of the bathroom, making sure he didn't look to survey the damage that he had done.

Leon walked down the hallway and back into the main room where he was going to tell Mark that it was time to go. As he entered, he saw Jeff holding a gun to Mark's head. Jeff had a wide, crazy grin on his face. Leon realized it as the smile of someone who had finally gone off of the deep end.

"Thought you were going to take us over did you? Thought you were going to feed us to those monsters out in the street, didn't you?" Jeff started asking, "What were you doing in the bathroom? Getting your secret stash of weapons to kill us with? Or maybe you were going to lead us outside to our deaths? Start answering my questions, asshole!"

Leon was silent for a moment, and then replied, "I went in there to kill your daughter. She was a zombie, and I didn't need her breaking out and killing us."

Jeff's smile was suddenly gone, and he pointed his gun at Leon. "You did WHAT?" he screamed. The others had woken up by now, and were staring at Jeff with nothing short of pure hatred for Mark and Leon

. "You killed my daughter! She wasn't like them! She was a good girl…she wouldn't hurt us." He was crying in between his hysterical ranting.

Leon only said, "We don't want to cause any trouble. Mark and I just want to get out of here and leave you guys alone. Nothing else has to happen. We're not going to feed you to the zombies or kill you or anything like that."

Jeff was not convinced. "No, you want us all to burn, and I'm not going to let you do that."

At that instant, everything went to hell. Leon drew his gun and shot Jeff. The shot landed square in the middle of his head, spraying blood behind him. The room was silent for a moment; nobody dared move. Then all of a sudden, Leon screamed, "Mark, run!" He did so, and that's when they retaliated. Linda, in a fit of rage, picked up here weapon and wildly shot at Leon. Leon ducked behind an aisle to take cover from the blasts that she was directing his way. He had no choice but to shoot back at the woman. Jacob had raised his weapon and was shooting in Mark's direction. Mark had also taken refuge behind one of the aisle walls and was also returning fire to Jacob.

Leon and Mark both knew that they would be in trouble if they didn't get to the door soon. Linda and Jacob had more ammo stocked with them and would be able to last longer in a firefight like this. They both tried to conserve their ammo against the psychotic survivors, but were doing a horrible job of that. It wasn't more than a minute into the battle when they heard Jacob give out a loud scream. Mark peeked around the corner to see what had caused him to do such, and was surprised to see young Matthew latched to his father's arm, ripping huge chunks of flesh out of it.

"Leon, we can go now, the kid turned into a zombie!" Leon heard this and checked to see if it was true. Sure enough, there was Matthew, ripping his father apart. Linda finally took notice and shot the child, but it was far too late for Jacob. He was nothing but a bloody heap of torn limbs and entrails. The zombified child got up and ran at Linda. She swung her gun and connected with its skull, and then shot it point blank in the face. With him dead, she turned back to Leon and Mark just in time to see them get to the door.

Sprinting outside, not bothering to close the door, Leon screamed, "Mark, where's your damn car!" Mark struggled to catch up with Leon and pointed to the front of the store, where there was now a rather large group of zombies; at least a hundred of them. The car sat just on the edge of the crowd. This was good, considering that a door just slammed and Linda was screaming, "I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"

The two made their way to the car, completely ignoring the zombies. Halfway there, they heard gunshots coming from Linda's weapon. It was impossible for Leon and Mark to focus with all of this happening at once, so they just kept their eye on the car and ignored everything around them. Linda was merely firing wildly in their direction and doing a horrible job of actually hitting her targets. The zombies were also far too slow to catch up with them, so they were able to make it to the car easily.

As Leon opened the door, a stray shot entered his shoulder. He immediately screamed and dropped to the pavement. He could vaguely hear Mark calling his name, zombies moaning, and some screaming lady off in the background. He cleared his head and crawled into the car, closing the door just in time to avoid being grabbed by the undead outside.

Mark turned on the car and, instead of moving forward through the crowd, backed up. Leon was in too much pain to object or ask why he was doing this, so he just let it happen. Mark shifted the car back into drive, and proceeded to drive in Linda's direction. Leon finally realized what he was doing, and amidst the pain of the gunshot, found the strength to scream, "Mark no!"

The scream fell upon deaf ears though. The man was focused on running the screaming lady down. He drove faster and faster, and Linda just stood there, shooting. Then, she was on the hood of the car, face splattered against the window. She slid off, and there was a streak of blood on the window from where her face had slid off.

Leon sat in the passenger seat, in shock from what had just happened. Mark simply looked at him and said, "I had to do it Leon. I just had to do it." Leon nodded as if he was agreeing with him. He didn't, but now really wasn't the time to argue with Mark. They would have to save that for when they got out of here.

Mark looked at his car's fuel gauge and said, "It looks like we have about half a tank of gas left. It should last us a while, so do you have any idea where we should go?"

Leon straightened up in his seat and said, "We should go somewhere where we can get this damn bullet out of my shoulder. It hurts like hell." Even though the hospitals were probably either closed or overrun with the undead, they should at least try going there. He didn't need his wound getting infected.

Mark nodded, "Alright, I think there's a hospital nearby. We'll get there soon, just hold on." With that, Mark backed up his car and drove through the group of zombies, leaving behind the bodies of the dead that had once been fellow survivors.

* * *

Yeah, it was shorter, but my next one will be longer. I just needed to get back into the swing of things.


	5. Arrival

I know I haven't updated in a long, long time. If you read this, thanks for bearing with me. It's people like you who make writing fanfiction worthwhile, when I actually do it that is.

Here's the next chapter. Please R&R- that would make me a happy person. This is probably one of the reasons I took a break too. Reviews would be nice, even if they're to tell me about all of the little things I'm messing up.

And to all of my readers in the U.S., have a great independence day! Don't blow any fingers off!

* * *

Arrival

The next hour was spent looking for a hospital. There were plenty in the area, but the ones that the two did come across were either overrun with infected or…well, overrun with infected. They were everywhere. In every building, on every sidewalk, scattered everywhere across the streets; it never ended. Leon was about to go insane from just looking at all of them.

The wound in Leon's shoulder was merely a throbbing pain. As long as he didn't move it, the pain would stay that way. He still wanted to get to a hospital; they would have better equipment to remove the bullet from his shoulder. All he was really worried about at this moment was infection from the wound. Well, that and zombies, of course.

Mark occasionally glanced over at Leon to make sure that he was holding up alright. He assumed that Leon had been shot a few times before, because if it had been him, he would be crying like a little bitch. He went as fast as he could while still being safe in order to find a hospital quicker. It was impossible to find anything without a few zombies crawling over it.

After the cycle repeated itself again-drive, find a location, see zombies everywhere, drive away-a few more times, Mark came upon a hospital that had only a few zombies in contrast to the rest of the buildings they had encountered. There weren't more than twenty near the entrance, scattered out so thinly across the lot that it would be incredibly easy to maneuver around them. Mark parked as close to the hospital as he could without being next to the zombies. Shutting off the car, him and Leon exited the vehicle and made their way to the entrance.

Most of the zombies that did notice their approach were too far away to actually do anything about it. The few that were close enough to attack them were easily taken out with a bullet. They had attracted the attention of the rest of the zombies by the time they got to the entrance, but they needed only to walk inside to get away from them.

Taking a few steps away from the door that the zombies were clawing at, they surveyed the inside of the hospital. The floors were surprisingly clean; not a body or bloodstain in sight. After the sights they had encountered thus far, this was almost eerie in comparison. The foreboding sense of terror seemed to loom in every open doorway, and this unnerved the two survivors.

The two cautiously made their way through the building, taking small, deliberate steps in order to avoid being jumped by stray zombies. Walking down the main hallway towards the lobby, they encountered nothing. They passed by several small office rooms, peering in to them to the sight of neatly arranged files and workspaces. And still not a single drop of blood adorned the walls of these rooms. Leon knew that he should be relieved at this sight, but it only made him more anxious about the entire situation.

Standing in the lobby, Leon was still struck by how tranquil everything looked. He knew that probably wasn't the right word for it, but it was the first thing that popped in to his head; tranquil. Leon looked over at Mark and, commenting on the desolation inside of the hospital, curtly said, "What the fuck?" That was all Leon needed to say, Mark understood completely. He felt it too, the tension in the air behind the calmness of the hospital.

Looking around the Lobby, Leon didn't notice anything spectacular. It was a bleach-white walled lobby with ugly carpeting and chairs lining the sides. There were a few light fixtures on the ceiling-turned off, unsurprisingly-and a reception area on the far end. There were two hallways branching off on either side of it that ultimately led to more rooms and to staircases and elevators that took guests to higher levels.

"We're taking this hallway," Leon said, pointing to the right. Mark made no objection, since he had absolutely no clue as to what they should do now. Leon started down the hallway with Mark close behind him, looking over his shoulder every now and again to make sure they weren't being followed by anything. Leon stopped at every room and swung low around the corners, his gun outstretched and ready to shoot anything. Mark established his own routine and stood above Leon every time, scanning the room high left and right as Leon scanned low. As with the main hallway, all of these rooms were deserted as well.

Coming out of the final room in the hallway, Leon sighed and said, "What the hell is this? It's as if everyone just disappeared. There's not even a damn spot of blood in this place!"

"I know, and it's not sitting very well with me," Mark replied, and it was true. This seemed like a good idea at first, but he had a feeling that it would blow up in their face soon.

Nodding in agreement, Leon said, "Yeah, me neither. I wanted to stay here longer, but that may not be such a good idea now. We'll find the medical supplies that I need and get out of here. I don't want to be here longer then we have to."

They opted to take the stairs to the second floor, as the elevators were probably out of service, or on the fritz. Mark had been in this hospital before, and recalled how a lot of the supplies were up on the second floor, and close, thank God. Leon's shoulder was starting to go stiff and tender from this bullet wound. Making their way up, they were less cautious than they had been. They saw no immediate threats on in the stairwell, and thus lowered their guard, which was good. If Mark had to keep his gun held up any longer, he would probably have accidentally shot something just because of the tension building inside of him.

Stepping out of the stairwell and on to the second floor, they noticed that it was a repeat of the first floor. The bleach-white walls had no blood on them, and everything had been deserted. The second floor was 4 hallways connected to form a square, the middle acting as a storage room for the medical supplies. On the North and South ends of this square were other hallways leading off to different wings.

But all Leon was interested in was the room in the center. That held all of the supplies that he needed in order to get the bullet out of his shoulder, and to stop it from getting infected. He knew that he would have to pick the lock though. The room was made from concrete walls, and the doors weren't kicked down very easily.

Leon found a pen and some sort of pin and went to work on the lock. It took him several minutes because of the pen's large size, but he eventually got the lock open. Inside, he quickly located the supplies he needed. They turned out to be tweezers, a scalpel, hydrogen peroxide, gauze pads, and tape. Outside of the room, Mark waited, diligently looking for anything that could kill them. It wasn't long before he heard muffled cries of pain coming from inside the room. He had to hand it to Leon though; it took a lot of balls to do something like that.

A few minutes later, Leon came out red-faced and gripping his shoulder in pain. Mark walked over and, worriedly, asked, "Dude, are you okay?" Leon just nodded and dropped the bullet in to Mark's open hand. He took one look at it and reflexively threw it across the room.

"You're a dick, Leon."

Leon smiled at the remark. Straightening up, he said, "We should try looking for the cafeteria. No use going further if we don't have any energy left."

Mark agreed and headed off to where he remembered the cafeteria to be. Leon was bringing up the rear this time, and it was odd to Mark. He was so used to being led by Leon. They skipped all of the doors this time, seeing as they were all closed. There was no sense in opening them if they didn't have to.

The hallway-the one branching off of the north wall-ended at the cafeteria a few minutes later. Leon put his hand on Mark's shoulder to signal that he would be taking the lead again. Mark gladly obliged with his request and traded places with Leon. Leon opened the door ever so slightly, just to stick the barrel of his gun in. He then threw the door open and immediately stopped dead in his tracks.

The room was caked with blood and guts. The floor, walls, tables, ceiling; everything was soaked. Bodies littered the area. Some were thoroughly chewed for everything they contained, and others were merely missing parts. Some had their own intestines hanging out. The mere sight of all of this froze the two in their spot, and prevented them from seeing something else.

Over in one half of the room was zombies. Not just a few of them; there were a lot of zombies. It was almost as if the people who hadn't been zombies had been herded in here in order to lead the zombies this way. The large group was slowly making its way towards Leon and Mark, still unbeknownst to them. It was only until they were directly in front of the two that they noticed the sheer size of the group.

The cafeteria was by no means small. Being as busy as the city was, the hospital needed to accommodate as many people as possible. Thus, the cafeteria could hold several hundred people at a time. Unfortunately, there seemed to be just that many zombies. Leon and Mark stumbled backwards in a desperate attempt to get out of the groups' reach, forgetting to close the cafeteria door. They realized this too late though, and the zombies broke free from the room.

Sprinting down the hallway, Leon and Mark decided to pocket the guns and focus on running. There was no use firing into the crowd of undead chasing after them. A few bullets wouldn't do much against the hundreds of those things chasing them. Instead, they focused on sprinting away; sprinting to survive against the hungry, undead onslaught.

Coming out of the hallway, they made a beeline straight for the stairs down to the main floor. These zombies were uncommonly fast. They weren't Crimson Heads, but they weren't ordinary zombies either. Leon and Mark were sprinting as fast as they could and weren't as far ahead of the group as they should have been. Going down the stairs, Leon could see that the zombies' motor skills were still the same as every other zombie's motor skills, meaning they were shit. They stumbled and fell over themselves going down the stairs.

This gave the two survivors a bit more time to get down to the first floor and, hopefully, to safety. The growls and screeches of the zombies still sounded close as they descended the stairs, which made no sense if they were falling over themselves. Leon and Mark didn't stop to check it out though, they just kept running. That was all they could do right now: Run.

Blasting out of the stairwell and into the hallway Leon panted out while he was running, "Go through the…lobby and in to…the next hall." Leon wanted to circle around the zombies and lose them that way. He would have to risk the chance that they weren't smarter along with being faster. There weren't a lot of choices available to them right now.

Unfortunately, their choices were limited further by the fact that the zombies at the main entrance had broken through the front door. They had flooded in to the main lobby and started making their way towards the survivors as soon as they saw them.

Leon and Mark froze in their tracks and quickly searched for a way out of this new predicament. Leon started trying the doors on the left wall of the hallway. Mark followed suit and started checking the doors on the right wall. The first few doors were locked, of course, but Mark soon found an unlocked door. "GET IN," he screamed at Leon. Leon ran inside the unlocked room and Mark closed the door behind him. Holding it closed Mark told Leon to find something to put in front of the door.

Leon turned on the lights and immediately saw and office desk that could be moved in front of the door. He started pushing it over, but was going too slow. Mark chanced the door holding the zombies back and went to help Leon push the desk. They finally got it in front of the door, and not a second too soon. The zombies had started pushing and scraping against the door as soon as they had finished.

Leaning against the closest wall, the survivors could see that there was nothing spectacular about the office. It was a small, drab office that wasn't decorated with anything, leading them to the assumption that it wasn't used very much. There were a few chairs, and a computer that had gone unnoticed until now. Maybe this room was used to type up medical reports or to report filing on the computer.

So there they sat for an hour, doing all of nothing except staring at the door, hoping it would hold against the horde outside. There were a few times that they thought the top half of the door would snap against their weight, but it ended up holding. It looked as if they would be safe for a while, so there was no point in panicking.

Leon had been pondering the room over for a while now and suddenly blurted out, "I think there might be a false wall here."

Mark looked over at Leon like he was crazy. Sure, the things that had been going on recently weren't normal, far from it actually, but things like that were things of movies. He didn't want to say this out loud though, he was sure that it was just Leon trying to make the situation better than it was. This was to say, better than the position of, "completely fucked and unable to do anything." So instead of voicing his initial thoughts, Mark only asked, "Leon, are you sure about that?"

Leon either didn't hear him or was ignoring him, because he kept searching for the fake wall that supposedly existed in this room. He was darting around the room, knocking his fist upon every square inch of the walls. Mark was getting tired of seeing it, and listening to it. The incessant knocks weren't doing him any good after everything that had been going on today.

After about five more minutes of listening to the knocks Mark finally spoke up. "Damn it Leon, there's obviously not a secret wall in here. All you're doing is walking around, looking like a complete idiot, and pissing me off! It's time to cut the shit and find a way out of here and…are you even paying attention?"

He was not. During the entire rant Leon had been knocking away at the walls. Mark was about to explode again when he saw Leon slow down. Leon was knocking on a particular spot in the wall now, and it sounded almost hollow. Mark was completely dumbfounded: Had Leon really found a false wall? Most likely yes, but a part of Mark secretly wanted it to be a false alarm out of pure spite.

Leon punched through the wall revealing a hole. Reaching to the back of the hole, he found a lever and pulled it forward. Upon doing so, a section of the wall next to him opened up.

"Now," Leon started, "Can you stop bitching and ranting long enough to follow me through the door?"

Mark stared at him for a few seconds and said, "I know I should be really happy right about now, but I fucking hate you."

Leon only snickered and walked inside, Mark close behind.

* * *

A/N: Also, I have a poll on my profile that I would like you to answer if you have the time. And once again, thanks for reading.


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